The official Dutch inquiry into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, which was released last week and resulted in the Dutch government resigning, contains one of the most sensational insights into Western intelligence ever published. Officials have been staggered by the findings. It reveals clandestine activities during the Bosnian war of the early 1990s. For five years Professor Cees Wiebes, of Amsterdam University, has had unrestricted access to Dutch intelligence files and has stalked the corridors of secret service headquarters in Western capitals, as well as in Bosnia, asking questions. His findings are set out in his study, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia, 1992-1995. It includes remarkable material on covert operations, signals interception, human agents and double-crossing by dozens of agencies in one of the dirtiest wars of the new world disorder. Now we have the full story of the secret alliance between the Pentagon and radical Islamist groups from the Middle East designed to help the Bosnian Muslims - some of the same groups that the Pentagon is now fighting in "the war against terrorism". Pentagon operations in Bosnia have delivered their own "blowback". In the 1980s Washington's secret services had helped Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran. Then, in 1990, the US fought him in the Gulf. In both Afghanistan and the Gulf, the Pentagon had incurred debts to Islamist groups and their Middle Eastern sponsors.
By 1993 these groups, many supported by Iran and Saudi Arabia, were anxious to help Bosnian Muslims fighting in the former Yugoslavia and called in their debts with the Americans. Bill Clinton and the Pentagon were keen to be seen as creditworthy and repaid in the form of an Iran-Contra style operation - flagrantly violating the UN Security Council arms embargo against all combatants in the former Yugoslavia. The result was a vast secret organisation in weapons-smuggling through Croatia. This was arranged by the clandestine agencies of the US, Turkey and Iran, along with a range of radical Islamist groups, including Afghan mujahideen and the pro-Iranian Hezbollah. Professor Wiebes reveals that British intelligence obtained documents early in the Bosnian war proving that Iran was making direct deliveries. Arms bought by Iran and Turkey with the financial backing of Saudi Arabia made their way by night from the Middle East. At first aircraft from Iran Air were used but, as the volume increased, they were joined by a mysterious fleet of black C-130 Hercules aircraft. The report stresses that the US was "very closely involved" in the airlift. Mujahideen fighters were also flown in, but they were reserved as shock troops for especially hazardous operations. The report stresses that the trade was clearly illicit. The Croats themselves also obtained vast quantities of illegal weapons from Germany, Belgium and Argentina - again contravening the UN arms embargo. German secret services were fully aware of the trade. The CIA wasn't behind these operations, it was the Pentagon's own secret service that was the hidden force. The UN protection force UNPROFOR was dependent on its troop-contributing nations for intelligence and, above all, on the sophisticated monitoring capabilities of the US to police the arms embargo. This gave the Pentagon the ability to manipulate the embargo at will, ensuring that American Awacs aircraft covered crucial areas and were able to turn a blind eye to the frequent nighttime comings and goings at Tuzla. Weapons flown in during the spring of 1995 were to turn up only a fortnight later in the besieged and demilitarised enclave at Srebrenica. When these shipments were noticed, Americans pressured UNPROFOR to rewrite reports, and when Norwegian officials protested about the flights, they were reportedly threatened into silence. Meanwhile, the secret services of Ukraine, Greece and Israel were busy arming the Bosnian Serbs. Mossad was especially active and concluded a deal with the Bosnian Serbs at Pale involving a substantial supply of artillery shells and mortar bombs. In return they secured safe passage for the Jewish population out of the besieged town of Sarajevo. Subsequently, the remaining population was perplexed to find that unexploded mortar bombs landing in Sarajevo sometimes had Hebrew markings. Richard Aldrich is Professor of Politics at the University of Nottingham, in Britain. His book The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligenceis to be published in August. -Guardian
-- Michael Pugliese
"Without knowing that we knew nothing, we went on talking without listening to
each other. Sometimes we flattered and praised each other, understanding that
we would be flattered and praised in return. Other times we abused and shouted
at each other, as if we were in a madhouse." -Tolstoy